Roughly twelve months ago, conversations commenced between DEECA and VicWater about the potential to run a sector wide cyber security exercise and late last year we engaged Cythera to help wrangle this together. On Tuesday (4/6/24) all the planning, workshopping and discussions came to fruition with an in-person event held at Melbourne Water, which was expertly facilitated by Craig Joyce from Cythera. The day was set up as two x two-hour discussion exercises, one looking at a major outage of our productivity suites and the other an interruption to our wastewater networks. The highlight for me was at each inject point, DGS and DEECA were invited to explain what would be happening in their control rooms during these periods. For me this completed the whole picture and provided clarity on some of the questions and activities that they undertake in an emergency scenario. It was also great to be able to align the activities with the newly released State Emergency Management Plan – Cyber Sub-Plan.

It was also great to meet many people in 3D for the first time with over 60 people in attendance. We had an excellent mix of technical IT and OT subject matter experts, Emergency Management experts and executives from the 18 water corporations participating, as well as representation from DEECA, DGS and the Department of Home Affairs. This meant that the conversations were robust and meaningful with all participants taking away something new or something to consider further.

It would be remis to talk about the exercise without thanking the key people involved in making this happen. It takes a lot of work, and it certainly would not have happened without the guidance of Craig Joyce at Cythera. It made the experience a lot more manageable and less stressful than it probably could have been.

In addition to his experience and resilience I would like to thank:

  • The project team of Richard Marshall from Goulburn Murray Water, Vaughn Brandenberg from the Metro Water Corporations (MW, YVW, SEW, GWW), Nick Madden and Pradeepa Adihetty from DEECA. As well as Andrew Marshall and Barry Smith from Goulburn Valley Water for helping to shape the scenarios.
  • Rob Considine and Dawn Hertog from DEECA and Rohan Davies from DGS for their guidance and participation on the day around their roles and responsibilities.
  • The Cythera team who expertly facilitated the day including Craig Joyce, Joh McPhee, Ben Cuthbert, Jarrod Loidl, Mark Terrill and Alistair Longley. As well as EJ Wise from Wise Law
  • Richard Morris and the reception team from Melbourne Water for hosting us on the day.

It was a really excellent day and I have been asked if it will be run again….the answer is….maybe? Let’s wait until I am over this one before committing!

5/06/2024
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